Incarceration doesn't end parents' rights

Published 10:51 pm, Tuesday, April 30, 2013

The Court of Appeals said that Shawn Granger is entitled to periodic four-hour prison visits with his 4-year-old son. Granger's attorney sued after the child's mother refused to take the boy to the prison.

A Family Court judge, in awarding visitation, had found that Granger, imprisoned at Clinton Correctional Facility on drug sales convictions, was previously involved in the child's life "in a meaningful way."

"A person who is in prison does not forfeit his or her visitation rights by being incarcerated," Judge Eugene Pigott Jr. wrote for the unanimous top court. "Visitation should be denied where it is demonstrated that under all circumstances visitation would be harmful to the child's welfare, or that the right to visitation has been forfeited."

According to the court, New York law presumes parental visits are in the child's best interest. The Family Court judge had properly weighed that presumption and rebuttal arguments by lawyers for the child and his mother without finding "a preponderance of evidence" that visits would be harmful.